Peter Dengate Thrush named InternetNZ Fellow

Media Release
- 5 August 2008 – InternetNZ (the Internet Society of New
Zealand Inc) has bestowed its highest honour upon
longstanding member Peter Dengate Thrush who was made an
InternetNZ Fellow at the Society’s Annual General Meeting
last week.

InternetNZ Fellowships recognise members of the
Internet industry who have made an outstanding contribution
to the development of the Internet in New Zealand or to the
Society.

InternetNZ Vice President Frank March says
Dengate Thrush was recognised because of his long and
distinguished record of contribution to Internet policy
issues both nationally and internationally.

“He has a
long history of engagement in the governance of the core
functions of the Internet and we are thrilled to honour him
as a Fellow.”

Dengate Thrush provided advice to the
Council of InternetNZ from 1995 on management of .nz and
represented InternetNZ in the landmark Oggi court case which
validated the first-come-first-served domain name
policy.

He was President of InternetNZ from 1999 to 2001
and his international contributions date from involvement
with consultations by the US Government from 1997 which led
to the formation of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers).

Dengate Thrush was Chair of
APTLD (the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association) from
2004 until 2006 when he was elected by the ccNSO
constituency to the ICANN Board.

He succeeded Vint Cerf as
Chair of the ICANN Board in December 2007 and was recently
appointed to chair the Telecommunications Carriers Forum
industry working group for Internet protocol
interconnection.

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